Statements, Art Basel’s section for up-and-coming galleries, is smaller and more focused this year. Its relocation from hall 1 to hall 2 has placed the section in a much more prominent position, alongside the mega-fair’s Galleries, Feature, and Edition areas. “Moving Statements to hall 2 will ensure that these young galleries and their emerging artists will reach the widest possible audience of potential patrons,” Art Basel director Marc Spiegler said, commenting on the changes earlier this year. “And reducing the sector’s size will push its quality even higher.” Fourteen international galleries were invited, featuring solo presentations of emerging artists from Europe, the Americas, and Asia.
American Contemporary, New York | David Brooks
David Brooks (b. 1975) is a New York based artist whose work considers the relationship between the individual, and built and natural environments. His work “Lonely Loricariidae,” 2014, presents five “undescribed” species of wild fish (not yet studied by scientists) caught in the Amazon Basin that have been arbitrarily assigned an identifying “L” code, since they lack a species name. Exhibited at Basel are L14, L25, L26 L27, and L427.
Galeria Isabel Aninat, Santiago de Chile | Paula De Solminihac
Paula De Solminihac (b. 1974) is a Chilean artist who lives and works in Santiago, where she is also a professor at the Catholic University. Her multi-media installation “Stratigraphy of Memory,” 2012-13, evokes Chile’s seismic history using simple elements such as clay and paper to create a complex multi-panel artwork that refers to various aspects of Chilean geography, culture, flora, and fauna.
Arratia Beer, Berlin | Pablo Rasgado
For his series “After Life,” 2013, Pablo Rasgado (b. 1984), who lives and works in Mexico City, researched lost paintings in international archives. Rasgado then repainted these “blind spots of art history” with the help of old photographs. After this, he exposed them to dust in a partly decaying palace-like building in Paris, before reworking their now patinated surfaces to lift the veils of time once more.
Laura Bartlett Gallery, London | Marie Lund
Danish-born and London-based artist Marie Lund’s (b. 1976) sculptures and installations are interested in material and the potential of continual processes, surfaces, and borders. At the Art Basel Statements section, London’s Laura Bartlett Gallery presents “Smooth Pursuits,” 2014, an installation consisting of two new series of works.
Bureau, New York | Ellie Ga
Combining narrative genres such as the essay and travelogue, New York-born and London-based Ellie Ga’s (b. 1976) work explores the limits of photographic documentation. “Measuring the Circle,” 2013-14, Ga’s new single-channel, split-screen video, unfolds with a narrative about the Pharos Lighthouse, whose sunken marble remains lie in the harbor in Alexandria, Egypt.
Pilar Corrias, London | John Skoog
John Skoog (b. 1985) works with film and video, following in the tradition of Scandinavian films through the use of stark backgrounds and slow pacing. The poetic use of Swedish landscape and powerful studies of character and emotion is reminiscent of works by such cinema greats as Victor Sjostrom or Mauritz Stiller.
Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin | Katja Novitskova
Estonian-born and Amsterdam-based Katja Novitskova (b. 1984) is known for her interest in the relationship between the nature of contemporary visual forms as they are disseminated and their ancient socio-material origins. Berlin Gallery Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, where Novitskova is currently showing her exhibition “Spirit, Curiosity, and Opportunity,” presents her new installation “Pattern of Activation,” 2014, in Basel.
Labor, Mexico City | Jorge Satorre
For “Killing Pots (Matar Vasijas),” 2011, Mexico City-based artist Jorge Satorre (b. 1979) worked with the co-founder of the Xico Valley Community Museum, which owns more than 5,000 pre-Colombian objects donated by local residents who found them while building their homes or working the farmlands. With drawings and three-dimensional works, Satorre attempts to vindicate seemingly unrepresented opinions as those able to reveal non-hegemonic truths.
PSM Gallery, Berlin | Christian Falsnaes
In his performances and installations, Danish artist Christian Falsnaes (b. 1980) works on critical observations of social phenomena, his research developing in active collaboration with his audience. In Basel, Berlin Gallery PSM presents Falsnaes’s “Justified Beliefs,” 2014, a specially commissioned performative installation in which viewers and live performers are linked by headphones.
RaebervonStenglin, Zurich | Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs
Swiss duo Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs (both b. 1979) are part of a new generation of artists working with photography. Their enchanting images combine irony with wonder and sly sophistication. At Art Basel Statements, Zurich gallery RaebervonStenglin presents a new project by the pair, in which two 16mm films depict their journey from Zurich to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Ramiken Crucible, New York | Lucas Blalock
New York- and Los Angeles-based artist Lucas Blalock (b.1978) explores the formal conventions of photography as well as its limitations and inert paradoxes. By applying Bertolt Brecht’s literary theory of alienation to his use of photography, he renders the basic principles of the medium — and its subsequent manipulations — visible. In the Statements section, the New York gallery Ramiken Crucible presents two new still-life photographs by Blalock.
Gallery Side 2, Tokyo | Fumito Urabe
Born the son of a monk, Japanese artist Fumito Urabe (b. 1984) is interested in the interactions and exchanges between Eastern philosophy and contemporary art. Urabe works with sculpture, painting, installation, and found objects. At Art Basel Statements, Tokyo’s Gallery Side 2 presents Urabe’s new work “Butterfly Wings Scattered Over the Water,” 2014.
Société, Berlin | Trisha Baga
New York-based artist Trisha Baga (b. 1985) is known for her unique mix of video and installation, and the use of state of the art technology with which she creates immersive and clever environments. The New York gallery Société presents a new multi-channel video installation by Baga, made exclusively for Art Basel Statements.
Kate Werble Gallery, New York | Anna Betbeze
Anna Betbeze (b. 1980) uses Flokati wool carpets to create multi-hued wall reliefs that straddle the categories of painting, sculpture, and textile. She engages the wool as a ground for acid dyes and pigments, performing various actions on the rugs such as cutting, burning, and tearing. In Basel, the American artist presents a single, sculptural, oval shaped platform providing a heightened experience of the traces that remain from her processes.
